Marina; rural crafts; gym

The bunnies appear to be settling in well, and appear more or less house-trained, which is nice. In an effort to find out more about my new housemates, I have been flicking through Dykes’ and Flack’s ‘Living With A Houserabbit’ for tips on rabbit habits and care. Their crepuscular nature (new word learned, courtesy of D and F) would seem to make them quite well suited to folk who work during the day, as they seem happy to be quiet during the day – see daytime shot of Lola under the coffee table – and then run round like mad things in the early morning and evening.

Last Saturday I went with Ray for a first visit to the Thames and Kennet Marina, where he will be mooring his new narrowboat. The narrowboats are housed in their own marina, while cruisers are moored in another marina next to it. Was favourably impressed – seems a pleasant spot and the facilities look pretty good from what I can judge. We found Ray’s berth and then went for a drink at the Waterfront Bar and Bistro on site.

Drink at the marina

In the afternoon we went for a visit to the University’s Museum of English Rural Life (see my 11 March entry for photo). This used to be housed in prefabs on the Whiteknights campus but moved to a new permanent home in 2005, in the former St Andrew’s Hall (there’s a history of St Andrew’s Hall here - it was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and was apparently originally known as 'East Thorpe'). In fact the bulk of the exhibits are housed in a new extension – I’m not sure what the old hall itself is being used for but I think there are lecture and reading rooms there. It’s very nicely laid out with lots of interactive exhibits, although as I have only limited interest in rural crafts and agricultural machinery, it’s not somewhere I could while away a large amount of time. Ray found it interesting though and interacted with several of the exhibits, including trying on some traditional smocks and watching a video about hurdle making.

Following last week’s fitness assessment, I returned to the gym this week to get an induction to the machines and a personalised fitness programme. Zita, the fitness instructor, led me around a bewildering array of machines and has done me a workout programme that should supposedly last about an hour – starts with a ten-minute warm-up on the exercise bike, then a few sets on about half a dozen other machines (some of which seem useful, some less so) then some mat exercises/stretches. Personally I think it’s a bit OTT for a beginner. Can see myself doing the ten-minute bike warm-up, then going for a swim…

Away Day; outlying campuses; women in farming

At the risk of sounding nauseatingly spring-like and positive, it was a beautiful morning this morning ... took this picture of the park at the end of my road at around 7.30am.

Week has been enlivened so far by a team Away Day at Reading Town Hall. My equilibrium was slightly unsettled by one of the activities in the morning, but a lunchtime walk through St Laurence's churchyard restored my spirits. Took a photograph of this bush, although I'm not entirely sure why - was possibly led towards it by mystical forces of which I am unaware.

Today's main achievement was to make my way successfully to Oxford Brookes University's Wheatley campus minus a car, something I wasn't initially sure was possible. The Brookesbus service proved me wrong though - although the journey from Oxford railway station takes about half an hour so best if you don't have too many other commitments on the day in question. According to this link, the CPRE have voted the tower on the Wheatley campus one of the ten ugliest buildings in the country. Much of the campus does admittedly have a somewhat grey tinge, but the O'Regan Centre, where my meeting was, is a pleasant, airy modern building. The campus is a typical former college campus that now finds itself part of a university - in the 1960s it was the Lady Spencer Churchill College before merging with Oxford Polytechnic in 1974, which in turn then became a university in the 1992 upgrading.

Attended an interesting lecture at the Museum of English Rural Life this evening on Women in British Farming, held to mark International Women's Day 2009. Some fascinating old photographs. Still not quite clear what was involved in being a bondager, although they seem to have worn bizarre bonnets. Audience, as expected, largely full of Game Old Birds, with a smattering of Game Old Chaps accompanying in some cases. We were served tea and an extremely nice coffee cake with butter icing. All strangely congenial. Perhaps am reaching the time of life when I should join Townswomen's Guild or similar.